Chick-Fil-A CEO posting more anti-gay comments.

[Elok]

Giving a part of the profits from selling a good or service to an organization alters the good or service and changes the nature of what they're buying in some people's eyes.

Yes, but after costs the amount CFA donates to "charity" in general works out to pennies per sandwich, if that. And they give to actual charities as well--they have a whole slew of them. Each missed purchase did far more damage to legitimately charitable activity than to the Twitchy Hetero Alliance, and far, far more damage to chicken suppliers and other innocuous middlemen. Seems kinda stupid to me, even without factoring in the utter impotence of anti-gay groups right now.

What organization is organizing the boycott? It looks more like an internet fad than anything else.

Yeah, I realized after posting that that I've blown this out of proportion. After all, the damn thing flopped. Probably because it wasn't organized. Anyway, we don't seem any closer to common ground here so I propose we drop the whole show.

[Aeson]

I'm not talking hypotheticals here. Do the math yourself if you don't believe me. You do (or are very likely to) pay rapists. And the way to avoid it is by withdrawing from the economy. Most people can't stomach that option, however, despite the fact that they supposedly think rape is a bad thing.

People can't make decisions about their entire life based on one and only one nearly-insignificant factor. That would be moronic. The level of harm by withdrawing from the economy completely far exceeds the level of harm of buying a cup of coffee from Starbucks even when a minuscule portion of your expense will be funding a job for a rapist.

The additional level of harm of buying chicken from eatery X instead of eatery Y is virtually nil. (It may be slightly positive or slightly negative based on who's chicken is better, how they treat their employees, etc.)

[Aeson]

Just to be clear, I don't mean to imply that the first amendment should protect people from non-government retaliation. I know there's a distinction there. And, of course, there's no clear-cut line between expressing disapproval and using social pressure to punish people for having the wrong opinions. But I think the latter is wrong, albeit common.

When you say that you are applying social pressure that may affect people's willingness to speak their mind. It is an unavoidable aspect of speaking your mind. Just because a lot of people do it at the same time in agreement about a subject doesn't make speaking your mind wrong.

What makes it right or wrong is whether the effect is positive or negative. In this case, the effect is rather small. Some eating establishments will gain roughly the same amount as some other eating establishments lose. Some flame wars will focus more on what some CEO said rather than on what someone else said about the same subject. Not much will change about the general state of society.

But this sort of social pressure is actually effectual in the long term. In a few decades babies will likely be born and will never have to worry themselves about whether some guy is in love with some other guy. It will happen because people's bigotry is challenged and made to look bad, convincing others to hide it ... and breaking the previous cycle where bigotry was instilled by the "allowed" or prevalent rhetoric. It is warfare, but not economic. Social. And in this case (acceptance and equality for homosexuals) the good guys are finally starting to win after a very long and destructive drought ... we need more social pressure to get it done, not less.

[Elok]

/me nods. Well, personally, I'd prefer moral apathy to moral certitude. I think a great deal of horrible things have been done in the name of what's moral. (You can make the argument that amorality is just as bad because it has not prevented said horrible things.) But aside from that, I also don't believe morality exists, much the same way you believe there is no morality to be found in atheism. (That is, it's not impossible for an atheist to be a "good" person, but it's impossible for "good" to matter without some higher power.) The difference between you and me is that I don't think we can know that higher power exists, or what it thinks good is (without first becoming omniscient).

Problems/objections/observations:

1. Despite what the Duke said, it's very hard to be genuinely and totally immoral, if only because you lose the ability to distinguish between choices except on the grounds of pure personal convenience. Just talking about "horrible things" is itself a moral judgment, for example. Even if it's not conventional morality, you need some heuristic to guide your choices and give meaning to your personal narrative. The alternative is proceeding more or less at random through one's life.
2. The closest you can come to amorality is unscrupulous egotism. You do not behave remotely like an unscrupulous egotist.
3. If there is a higher power or principle at work, it could be known only by deliberate revelation--i.e., at its initiative, not ours. The problem, of course, being the form such a revelation would take, and verifying its legitimacy. I prefer to say that the term "morality" becomes meaningless or arbitrary, personally, but there's no much difference from the way you said it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, but if you're deliberately trying to achieve precisely the same purpose, the distinction appears purely academic to me. Either way, you're trying to force an end to somebody else's rightly lawful activity. Now, I don't think boycotts should be rendered illegal--that would be absurd, unenforceable and lead to serious problems even if you could make it stick. But I believe frivolous boycotts like the CFA one are morally repugnant attempts to shut down other people's freedom of thought, speech and association. They'd be much worse if they weren't so ineffectual.

Also: it's part of the bill of goods with free speech and free association. A business owners' repugnant views being countered by the community freely associating to not frequent his business any more is essential to free speech & association.

[Elok]

Yes, I'm aware of that. But when they're using said freedoms to try and deny said freedoms to somebody else, I consider it an abuse.

[Lorizael]

1. Just talking about "horrible things" is itself a moral judgment, for example.

It only seems like a moral judgment. The problem is that humans often conflate "happy/productive people/countries" with "morally good." When I speak of horrible things, I mean that only in terms of the continued functioning of whatever I'm talking about, apart from any moral considerations. For example, if Hitler had been mauled to death by bears, that would have been pretty horrible for his continued well-being. But few people would have called that a horrible thing morally speaking. (Of course, even in that example, the moral horror is focused on human civilization. The distinction I'm drawing is between bad for a specific thing and bad in a universal, objective fashion.)

2. The closest you can come to amorality is unscrupulous egotism. You do not behave remotely like an unscrupulous egotist.

Indeed. That's because I have a goal and I believe the best way to achieve that goal involves working with/through human society. But doing good things for human society is not moral in my book; it only serves my purposes. And even serving my purposes is not a moral activity; it's just the only thing I think might be worth doing. (I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm human and guided by psychological impulses, however. I won't pretend that I don't have the same kind of moral compass that most everyone else does. I just don't think that, logically speaking, it should guide my actions.)

3. If there is a higher power or principle at work, it could be known only by deliberate revelation--i.e., at its initiative, not ours.

I disagree, mostly because of an argument that approximates Descartes' evil demon, but I don't think there's much point in arguing that.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

The entire premise that Cathy's comments are injurious to CFA is flawed, (thanks Oerdin). Thus ongoing discussions how this is a hit to CFA as an organization is unwarranted. The vast majority of the franchises are southern state based and anti-homo sentiments are akin to ringing the dinner bell. You would have thought Oerdin would have put two and two together and linked his hatred in a unified field theory of stereotyping and bigotry by now. As it is he is unable to reconcile the most pervasive and least understood force, the inevitable wrongness of any Oerdin conclusion.

[Elok]

Lori: "worth doing" implies an end you value for some reason. I'm willing to assume self-preservation, i.e. if you're standing in front of a busy six-lane highway, you can say you "shouldn't" try to cross on foot without making a moral statement and running afoul of is-ought. Anything much more complex than that implies that there are some outcomes you value more than others--outcomes having little to do with self-preservation. If you have any goals at all--and I think you do--those goals are necessarily chosen in lines with the things you value. And values are the same as morals. There's some image of beauty you're chasing there.

[Dinner]

Oggie, you're just wrong. Alienating potential customers is never good and building animosity with potential customers for no good reason is just not a good business plan especially for a company which has said they want to aggressively expand outside of the south into more progressive states. This has only down sides for them and no upsides.

[Lorizael]

Lori: "worth doing" implies an end you value for some reason. I'm willing to assume self-preservation, i.e. if you're standing in front of a busy six-lane highway, you can say you "shouldn't" try to cross on foot without making a moral statement and running afoul of is-ought. Anything much more complex than that implies that there are some outcomes you value more than others--outcomes having little to do with self-preservation. If you have any goals at all--and I think you do--those goals are necessarily chosen in lines with the things you value. And values are the same as morals. There's some image of beauty you're chasing there.

I think that if I achieve the end I have in mind, I might figure out what is worth doing. That doesn't make the task of finding out necessarily worth doing, however, because it's distinctly possible that whatever it is that's worth doing doesn't require human (or sentient) intervention at all. For my life, I've defined this goal of figuring out what's important to be what motivates me. But it's not meaningful in some existential you make your own meaning kind of way. It's just what I've chosen to do because, essentially, I'm curious, and the possibility exists that what I'm doing might lead to something important.

Massive threadjack.

[DaShi]

Yes, I'm aware of that. But when they're using said freedoms to try and deny said freedoms to somebody else, I consider it an abuse.

Cathy is using his position and money to promote his views which deny freedoms to others. Yet, the grand Elok is silent there.

As I pointed out earlier, you're argument is not only hypacrytical, it's unpossible to inforce. You are denying basic consumer rights. Commi-fascist!

Just to be clear, I don't mean to imply that the first amendment should protect people from non-government retaliation

But this is exactly what you are asking for in first quote. Maybe not the first amendment, but in some sort of action. Unless you don't know what the words you are using mean, which I'm starting to think is a real possibility given your responses in this thread.

But, you know, continue to take your frustration out of DFG. He is the resident punching bag.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Cathy is using his position and money to promote his views which deny freedoms to others.

(Crap, I should have thought of that argument)

[The Mad Monk]

So Freedom of Speech applies only when people don't use their position or money to help spread their views? Is that reasonable to you?

[Imran Siddiqui]

So Freedom of Speech applies only when people don't use their position or money to help spread their views? Is that reasonable to you?

I'm 100% unsure of how you possibly got that Dashi or I was saying that.